Client opportunity modeling tool

ABSTRACT

A business opportunity proposal is presented on a display device to a client. A business modeling capability installed on a computing device has parameters which can be altered to show calculations such as ROI relating to the business opportunity. An image capture device captures an image or video stream of the client during the presentation. Attentive technology software analyzes the image. Eye movement, facial expression, gestures and body motion in the image to detect a cued event situation. Parameters in the business modeling capability are altered during the presentation in response to the analyzing in order to more effectively communicate and reach agreement with the client on the proposal.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to systems and methods for making businessopportunity presentations to potential customers in general. Morespecifically, the invention relates to systems and methods of modelingfinancial returns for a proposed business opportunity and optimizing themodel in response to unspoken feedback from the client.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A business opportunity may be offered to a client in the form of apresentation. The client is a potential customer or current customer ofthe party making the presentation. The purpose of the presentation is toconvince the client to take advantage of the benefits of the businessopportunity by purchasing the services or products of the presentingparty. If the client is a current customer, then the presenting partyattempts to receive additional purchases from the client associated withthe business opportunity which is being presented.

The presenting party may be a single individual making an offering ofservices or products. The presenting party may also be an agentrepresenting another individual, firm, or a large company. Often thepresenting party is a team of individuals employed by or representing alarge company having a broad spectrum of services and products availablefor purchase by the client.

The client may also be a single individual, or a team of people who willview and evaluate the business opportunity for a client. Often one orjust a few people on the client team will be the key decision maker(s).

The presentation may be either a single meeting or as is more often thecase, will comprise several presentation sessions, each covering variousaspects of the business opportunity, and each with differing members ofthe presenting and client teams participating. One aspect of a businessopportunity which may be a subject of one or more presentation sessionsis a business model of the opportunity including, for example a returnon investment (ROI) calculation.

ROI calculations are well known in the business and accounting arts. Forexample, ROI is described as a ratio of income to investment inManagerial Accounting by Morse and Zimmerman, Irwin McGraw-Hill, Boston1997, page 477. Calculations for other measures of a businessopportunity are also described by Morse and Zimmerman such as internalrate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV). Certain input valuesare chosen such as expenditures to be made at certain points in time andexpected revenues to be received at other points in time. Theexpenditures typically represent investments to be made by the client inthe business opportunity, including purchases of the presenting party'sofferings. The revenues typically represent expected sales from theclient based on the investments to the client's customers or potentialcustomers.

Various assumptions may be made about costs, prices, volumes, and otherparameters of the opportunity. Financial assumptions are also madeabout, for example, financing alternative costs, or time value of money.An ROI may then be calculated. Other calculations may also be made suchas various break even points, pay back periods, IRR, or NPV.

Although calculators and interest rate tables have been used for suchcalculations in the past, the use of spreadsheet software tools is nowmore common. A spreadsheet shall be understood herein to mean a softwaretool having a two dimensional array of cells in which a user may enterdata or formulas in the cells to facilitate entry, calculating results,and recording values. Some spreadsheets permit data of nearly any typeto be entered in a cell including a number, a mathematical formula,alphanumeric variable, text, a graphic, an audio or video clip, or anobject of any type such as known in the object oriented programmingarts. LOTUS 1-2-3® (LOTUS 1-2-3 is a trademark of Lotus DevelopmentCorporation, Cambridge, Mass. and EXCEL® (EXCEL is a trademark ofMicrosoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.) are examples of spreadsheet softwarecurrently available which may be used for such calculations.

Independent of the above techniques, various methods have been developedto measure how people respond to information presented on a computerscreen. For example, Edwards in U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,119 describesrecording eye tracking data of a test person viewing scenarios andvirtual pages. The recorded data is then analyzed to determine, forexample, the sequence in which the test person views various items on avirtual page, or mental states (e.g. reading a block). The sequence ormental state may be superimposed on the virtual page, for further study.The mental states are deduced from patterns of elementary eye trackingdata such as fixations and saccades using methods described in Edwards'U.S. Pat. No. 6,102,870.

Tognazzini et al. in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,731,805, 5,831,594, 5,866,683, and5,898,423 describe monitoring the gaze position of a computer user, andselecting information to be displayed based on the gaze position. Thedisplay may be expanded in a gaze area. Text may be highlighted toindicate last gaze position before the user looked away, making it easyto return to the point of departure. Additional information may bepresented regarding a topic on which the gaze of a user paused. Theadditional information may be text, visual, or sound.

Weinblatt in U.S. Pat. No. 4,075,657 describes an apparatus for trackingeye movement in response to visual stimuli, such as advertising, on ascreen.

Jakob Nielsen in “Non Command User Interfaces,” published inCommunications of the ACM, April 1993 vol. 36, No. 4 pp. 93-94 describesuse of eye tracking data as a potential input device for a paddleballvideo game. He also describes an application in which informationpresented in a window is updated whenever a user looks from some otherpoint, to the window. The window is updated to contain information aboutthe last point viewed before looking to the window. In anotherapplication a speech synthesized narration is changed to go into moredetail about a feature on the screen to which a user starts to payspecial attention as deduced from the user's eye movement.

N. Hari Narayanan in “Exploiting Gaze Data for the Analysis andSynthesis of Visual Interactions,” published as a research report of theVisual Information, Intelligence & Interaction Research Group of theDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering of Auburn University,Auburn, Ala. describes using gaze parameters from eye tracking data, inconjunction with speech and haptic inputs to control an interactivesystem and navigate through it.

Kado et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,410,609, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety, describe an apparatus for identification ofindividuals which involves inputting a facial image of an individual.The image is compared to a database of expressionless images ofindividuals and difference vectors determined. Movement vectors forexpression muscles are stored in a database of expression muscles foreach of the individuals. Expression muscles are used when facialexpressions are made. A judgement is then made as to whether or not thedifference vectors are due to the expression muscles.

Other identification methods for individuals involve taking an image ofthe iris of an eye of an individual. For example IBM and Schiphol Grouphave announced an airport security system using a camera and softwarecomponents to compare a person's iris with data stored on a smart card.See, for example, the articles “IBM to Unveil Biometric Pact,” by K.Delaney and P. Prada in the Wall Street Journal Apr. 25, 2002 page D-5,and the press release “IBM Looks Airline Security in the Eye,” Apr. 25,2002 which is incorporated herein by reference.

During a presentation, the presenting party receives both spoken andnon-verbal feedback from the client. An astute presenting party willmake use of such feedback to alter the presentation by, for example,emphasizing a particular point, or providing additional information onsome aspect than would otherwise be provided. However, the presentingparty frequently misses some non-verbal feedback because the demands ofmaking the presentation have the presenting party looking elsewhere thanat the client at the time a non-verbal facial expression, or gesture orother non-verbal feedback sign is made. Furthermore, although eyecontact with the client may be desirable in certain circumstances,continuous staring at the client may be considered impolite orundesirable for other reasons. Also it may be difficult or impossible tosimultaneously observe all of the members of a client team.

An improved method of presenting a proposed business opportunity to aclient which makes use of non-verbal feedback would therefore constitutean advancement in the business proposal arts.

OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore, a principal object of the present invention to enhancethe business proposal arts by providing a system with enhancedpresentation capabilities.

It is another object to provide such a system wherein enhancedoperational capabilities are possible.

It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method forpresenting a business proposal with enhanced capabilities.

These and other objects are attained in accordance with one embodimentof the invention wherein there is provided a method of presenting abusiness opportunity proposal to a client, comprising the steps of,providing a visual display tool having a display device, a businessmodeling capability with parameters, an image capture device, and anattentive technology analyzer, presenting a business opportunity usingthe display device and the business modeling capability, to the client,while presenting, capturing an image of the client with the imagecapture device, analyzing the image with the attentive technologyanalyzer, and during the presenting, modifying the parameters inresponse to the analyzing to drive the business modeling capability toalter the business opportunity.

In accordance with another embodiment of the invention there is provideda system for presenting a business opportunity proposal to a client,comprising, a computing device, a visual display device attached to thecomputing device, for showing a presentation to a client, an imagecapture device attached to the computing device, for capturing an imageof the client during the presentation, a business modeling capabilityhaving adjustable parameters, installed on the computing device,attentive technology software installed on the computing device, foranalyzing the image, and presentation software installed on thecomputing device, adapted for presenting the business modelingcapability to the client, while also adjusting the parameters inresponse to the analyzing of the image.

In accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention thereis provided a computer program product for instructing a processor toshow a business opportunity proposal to a client, said computer programproduct comprising, a computer readable medium, first programinstruction means for analyzing a business model of the opportunity,with parameters, second program instruction means for showing thebusiness model to the client, third program instruction means forcapturing an image of the client from an image capture device, fourthprogram instruction means for analyzing the image, and fifth programinstruction means for modifying the parameters in response to theanalyzing of the image while showing the business model to the client,and wherein all of the program instruction means are recorded on themedium.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating the various steps in presenting abusiness opportunity proposal to a client according to one embodiment ofthe invention; and

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the various elements of a system forpresenting a business opportunity according to an embodiment of theinvention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

For a better understanding of the present invention, together with otherand further objects, advantages and capabilities thereof, reference ismade to the following disclosure and the appended claims in connectionwith the above-described drawings.

In FIG. 1 there is shown a flowchart of steps in accordance with oneembodiment of the present invention. In step 12 a visual display tool isprovided. The tool includes a display device which may be a displayscreen on a laptop computer, or a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, or acomputer driven digital projector, or a display screen on a palmtop,hand held, cell phone, or any other type of device having a displayscreen.

The display tool also has a business modeling capability. Suchcapability may comprise software running on a computing device, forexample, spreadsheet software running on a computing device. Thecomputing device may also be driving the display device. The businessmodeling capability includes parameters having values that areadjustable. The parameters may be variables or constants within abusiness model. If the business model is a spreadsheet, then theparameters may be numbers entered in specific cells of the spreadsheet.A parameter may also be a number in a formula that is entered in aspreadsheet cell. The spreadsheet may be calculating an ROI, NPV, orother business modeling calculations. After a parameter is entered oraltered, a new calculation of ROI, NPV, etc. may then be made by thespreadsheet model.

The visual display tool also includes an image capture device such as adigital camera, video camera, VCR (video cassette recorder) camera,television camera, or the like. The image capture device may be attachedto the display device, as shown in FIG. 2, described below. It may alsobe one or more separate cameras which can be oriented or aimed in anydesired manner such as at a client or clients' face, torso, side, orback. The image capture device is capable of taking an image such as asingle picture, or a sequence of pictures, or a continuous video streamof pictures.

The visual display tool also includes an attentive technology analyzerfor analyzing images from the image capture device. This analyzer may beany software, hardware, or combination capable of performing an analysisof the image for the purpose of modifying the parameters in the businessmodel. In one embodiment the analyzer senses eye movement such asposition, gaze, fixations, and saccades. The analyzer may also sensefacial expressions, such as smile, frown, grimace, cry or any other typeof facial expression. Gestures, whether of the hand or any body part aswell as body motion may also be sensed and analyzed. The analyzer mayalso detect through analysis of the images a cued event situation whichis defined herein to mean any human condition or response such as lackof interest, lack of understanding, discomfort with the materialpresented on the display device, mistrust, agreement, pleasure and thelike. The cued event situation may be detected in one embodiment by alogic-based detection of condition cues such as eye focus, pupildilation, blink rate, or any combination of eye movement, facialexpression, gesture, or body motion, or any other analysis of the imagefrom the image capture device. Patterns of movement or cues may be usedto detect cued event situations.

In step 14 a business opportunity is presented to a client using thedisplay device and business modeling capability. For example, apresenting party may be showing a spreadsheet model of a businessopportunity involving an initial investment in one year and projectedsales revenues in following years. While the presenting party ispresenting to a client, an image of the client is captured in step 16using the image capture device. As explained above, the client may be asingle individual or a client team. The client may be viewing thepresentation on any type of display device and one or more cameras maybe used to capture the image.

In step 18 the image is analyzed using the attentive technology analyzerusing techniques described above. Other techniques known in theattentive technoloy arts may be used as well as commonly known orpsychologically known meanings of facial expression, gestures, bodymotions, as well as eye movements. For example an up and down motion ofthe face is generally accepted in most but not all cultures to meanagreement. Certain patterns of movement of facial expression muscles maybe analyzed to determine disagreement, discomfort, and the like. Inresponse to the analyzing, parameters in the business modelingcapability are modified in step 20 to alter the business opportunitybeing presented. For example, in one embodiment the analyzer may detecta cued event situation and display an onscreen alert notification suchas an icon. The presenting party is trained to respond to the onscreenalert notification to take some type of action. The action may be tochange certain parameters in the business modeling capability that theclient is responding to. The presenting party may also engage the clientin active dialogue to discover the source of the cued event situation.In one embodiment one or more parameters may be automatically increasedor decreased in response to a cued event situation without interventionof the presenting party.

Use of the present invention therefore creates a more free-flowing andcollaborative work environment for the client and presenting party byexpanding the non-verbal communication opportunity which occurs. Thismore effective collaboration with a client permits the presenting partyto more quickly reach agreement or close on a business opportunityproposal with the client.

In FIG. 2 there is shown a system for presenting a business opportunityproposal to a client in accordance with the present invention. Computingdevice 42 has visual display device 43 attached. The display device maybe directly attached e.g. as shown in FIG. 2 as with a laptop computer.Display device 43 may also be attached to computing device 42 through acable, network connection, wireless connection or any other type ofattachment known in the art which permits computing device 42 orsoftware loaded thereon to drive display device 43.

Image capture device 44 as described above is also attached using anytype of attachment or connection, to computing device 42. This capturedevice would normally be oriented for capturing an image of client 48during a presentation. The image may be a video stream. Client 48 wouldnormally be positioned to face or view display device 43 as shown,however any arrangement of display device 43, image capture device 44and client is possible.

Business modeling capability 46 is installed on computing device 42 andcomprises software or hardware for performing business modelcalculations in response to adjustable parameters. In one embodiment,capability 46 is a spreadsheet adapted for performing an ROI modelcalculation.

Attentive technology software 45 is also installed on computing device42. Software 45 analyzes the image. The analyzing may include eyemovement, facial expression, gestures and body motion. Analyzing mayalso be capable of detecting a cued event situation as described above.Attentive technology software 45 may be adapted to show an alertnotification, such as an icon on display device 43 when a cued eventsituation is detected. Other types of alert notification to presentingparty 41, such as a private audio alert sent to an earphone device wornby representing party 41 may also be used, whether or not client 48 hasaccess to the alert.

Presentation software 47 is also installed on computing device 42. It isadapted for presenting business modeling capability 46 to client 48,while also adjusting parameters in the business model in response to theanalyzing of attentive software 45. In one embodiment, presentationsoftware 47 and business modeling capability 46 may be combined as asingle spreadsheet program. Presentation software 47 may also be adaptedto automatically modify parameters in business modeling capability 46 inresponse to a cued event situation detected by attentive software 45.

While there have been shown and described what are at present consideredthe preferred embodiments of the invention, it will be obvious to thoseskilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be madetherein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined bythe appended claims.

1. A method of presenting a business opportunity proposal by apresenting party to a client team, comprising the steps of: providing avisual display tool having a display device, a business modelingcapability including a spreadsheet with parameters, an image capturedevice, and an attentive technology analyzer; presenting said businessopportunity proposal by said presenting party to said client team usingsaid display device and said business modeling capability; while saidpresenting party is presenting, capturing an image of said client teamwith said image capture device; analyzing said image for two or more ofthe following: eye movement, facial expression, gestures, or bodymotion, with said attentive technology analyzer; and during saidpresenting by said presenting party, modifying said parameters in saidspreadsheet in response to said analyzing to drive said businessmodeling capability to alter said business opportunity proposal.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein said visual display tool is a laptopcomputer.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein said display device is adigital projector.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein said image is avideo stream.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein said attentivetechnology analyzer is adapted to detect a cued event situation.
 6. Themethod of claim 5, wherein said cued event situation is lack ofinterest, lack of understanding, discomfort, or mistrust, orcombinations thereof.
 7. The method of claim 5, further comprisingdisplaying an onscreen alert notification of said cued event situation.8. The method of claim 5, wherein said modifying comprises an automaticincrease or decrease in one or more of said parameters in response tosaid cued event situation.
 9. A system for presenting a businessopportunity proposal by a presenting party to a client team, comprising:a computing device; a visual display device attached to said computingdevice, for showing by said presenting party, a presentation to saidclient team; an image capture device attached to said computing device,for capturing an image of said client team during said presentation; bysaid presenting party; a business modeling capability including aspreadsheet having adjustable parameters, installed on said computingdevice; attentive technology software installed on said computingdevice, for analyzing said image for two or more of the following: eyemovement, facial expression, gestures, or body motion; and presentationsoftware installed on said computing device, adapted for presenting bysaid presenting party, said business modeling capability to said client,while also adjusting said parameters in said spreadsheet in response tosaid analyzing of said image.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein saidcomputing device is a laptop computer.
 11. The system of claim 9,wherein said visual display device is a digital projector.
 12. Thesystem of claim 9, wherein said business modeling capability is an ROIspreadsheet tool.
 13. The system of claim 9, wherein said image is avideo stream.
 14. The system of claim 9, wherein said attentivetechnology software is adapted to detect a cued event situation.
 15. Thesystem of claim 14, wherein said attentive technology software isadapted to display on said visual display device, an alert notificationof said cued event situation.
 16. The system of claim 14, wherein saidpresentation software is adapted to automatically increase or decreaseone or more of said parameters in response to said cued event situation.17. A computer program product for instructing a processor to generate abusiness opportunity proposal for presenting by a presenting party, to aclient team, said computer program product comprising: a computerreadable medium; first program instruction means for analyzing abusiness model including a spreadsheet having parameters, of saidopportunity; second program instruction means for displaying saidbusiness model including said spreadsheet on a display device; thirdprogram instruction means for capturing an image of said client teamfrom an image capture device while said presenting party is presentingsaid business opportunity proposal to said client team fourth programinstruction means for analyzing said image for two more of thefollowing: eye movement, facial expression, gestures or body motion; andfifth program instruction means for modifying said parameters in saidspreadsheet in response to said analyzing of said image while saidpresenting party is presenting said business model to said client team;and wherein all of said program instruction means are recorded on saidmedium.
 18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein said imageis a video stream.